Impulse Bought a Zero Image 135

Thanks for the tip.

I made some awkward tests last night. Most of the shots I made were underexposed. I also loaded it wrong initially and I really had to force the advance (which I thought was normal). The result was some badly scratched negs in the end. I started to unload the camera in my changing bag when everything started to slack up and I resealed the box and then fired off a few more photos.

None of them were really presentable aside from maybe the very first one I did from my patio. There was a reasonable amount of sharpness to it and it had a lot of pinholey goodness to it. I tried taking advantage of the pinholes infinite depth of field by trying to get really close-up shots of stuff but the results in that regard were failures IMO.

I now have it loaded with some Adox 25. I may make some more test shots this afternoon.
 
Would this be due to the reciprocity thing? I used the exposure guide on the back and it read, for instance, 30 seconds. Do I have to compensate on TOP of that when exposures are over a second?
 
I'd use Fuji Acros, it has virtually no reciprocity failure at all. I think I needs en extra half-stop for exposures over 2 minutes! Less than 2 minutes, no compensation needed.

Ok, I just looked at Fuji's PDF tech data sheet for Acros. No compensation needed for exposures less than 120 seconds (2 minutes), and 1/2 stop for exposures rom 120 seconds to 1000 seconds!
 
Al Kaplan said:
Aluminum foil gives a nice clean hole. Paper gives a hole with little fibers arount the edge. Try holding the needle with pliers and heating the tip red hot with a cigarette lighter and you can burn a hole in black paper with clean edges.
Click to expand...
I tried all that stuff! - now I have a small black metal cylinder screwed to the front, inside it are six concave and convex glass discs, with a pretty purple coating!....makes the box heavier!, but WOW! the picture improvement is amazing!:D
Dave.
 
Here are some test shots. To be honest maybe I should've went with the 6x9. The 135 is really tricky to use with the take up spool, and the jagged mask wastes a lot of space on the neg as well. I know it's pinhole and I can't expect a lot of sharpness, but this is a bit too soft. Maybe. This was just an experiment on a whim.

pinhole1.jpg


pinhole2.jpg


pinhole3.jpg


pinhole4.jpg
 
Darkhorse said:
Here are some test shots. To be honest maybe I should've went with the 6x9. The 135 is really tricky to use with the take up spool, and the jagged mask wastes a lot of space on the neg as well. I know it's pinhole and I can't expect a lot of sharpness, but this is a bit too soft. Maybe. This was just an experiment on a whim.
Click to expand...

I don't think they're that bad. They still look sharper than I get from my pinhole on my 645 camera and they're miles sharper than my pinhole on my Nikon for 35mm.
 
Darkhorse said:
Here are some test shots. To be honest maybe I should've went with the 6x9. The 135 is really tricky to use with the take up spool, and the jagged mask wastes a lot of space on the neg as well.
Click to expand...

I'm somewhat in the same boat. I got a Zero Image 135 too and I wish it was a bit sharper. I still enjoy using it however. I'm thinking of getting the 4x5 version eventually.
 
I'll suggest getting some extensions if you do that. A lot of the 4x5 zero images I see are a bit too wide angle for my tastes.
 
Useless

Useless

Seele said:
Laser cut pinholes are useless:

Ideally, the pinhole plate should be infinitessimally thin, so that the hole itself would not "barrel vignette". Laser cutting punches a neat hole through the thickness of the metal shim, and in relation to the size of the hole, the thickness is quite significant, like looking through a tube. Now, look through a cardboard tube head on, you can see the whole opening, but tilt it a little, the hole is blocked.

It is best to make your own pinhole using a shim cut out of a beer can. Make the hole with a needle - preferably held in a needle vice - by slowly applying pressure as you rotate the shim, supported with a stack of paper or thick cards. Then use sandpaper to keep sanding down the shim around the pinhole area until you get the edge as thin and sharp as possible.
Click to expand...


Useless is a little strong description. This laser cut brass disk is 0.03MM thick, the hole is perfect center 0.2 MM diameter. 15 bucks on E-bay. Works like a champ.

3638448425_52d783fd4d.jpg
 
What I mean is that the laser cut pinholes can indeed produce pinhole photographs, by its nature, an alternative method of creating the pinhole can offer greater quality and flexibility. An off-the-shelf pinhole lenscap certainly be a convenient way to experience this form of photography, but if you want to experiiment further, such as desiring to give wide-angle coverage for instance, a pinhole plate with knife-edge surrounding the hole would definitely be a better idea. In fact, I suspect such a pinhole plate of this type used as a substitute for the laser cut pinhole plate should give better illumination across the image field.

An analogy: these days many less-experienced photographers want to get into using film for that blurred, hazy look, because what they know about film is through the high-profile "Lomography" and Holga circles. One would think the "look" of a pinhole photograph is of a certain description given by a less-perfect pinhole plate, but then a proper one would be quite different yet again.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom